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The Court interpreted the provisions of an amended JCT Design and Build Contract 2016 with particular focus on the scope of a contractor's responsibility for additional and unforeseen works on site, and the legitimacy of suspension and termination notices.Facts The claimant (BNP) engaged the defendant (B&F) to design and construct stair pressurisation works in a 30-storey office tower. These works would include removing the existing system and installing an improved system. The contract was an amended 2016 JCT Design and Build contract. Works were complicated due to the presence of asbestos in the building. An issue arose between the parties as to the extent of the asbestos removal works, and whether B&F was obligation to carry out additional  surveys and the asbestos removal works  that were subsequently required, as well as additional structural works that had not initially been foreseen as part of its original scope of work.When further asbestos was discovered, the works were halted, and B&F issued a suspension and then termination notice. BNP treated this as repudiatory breach and sought declarations that B&F was not entitled to serve either the suspension or…

David Thomas KC has successfully argued before the Privy Council that the decision of the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago in EMBD v Junior Sammy Contractors should be upheld.  

An application for statutory review of planning decision failed because the claimant failed to put the relevant material before the planning inspector when making his decision. There was a strong public interest in the finality of planning appeals and the claimant could not seek to rely on new materials after the decision.Facts The claimant applied for statutory review. The impugned action was the first defendant’s decision to allow the second and third defendants’ (residential developers) appeals against the refusal of planning of permission for two residential developments within the metropolitan green belt. The local authority had refused permission because these developments did not amount to the special circumstances required to allow developments within the green belt.When the developers appealed against this decision, the planning inspector concluded that overall, the harm was clearly outweighed by other considerations, so as to amount to the very special circumstances necessary to justify the developments. He recommended that both appeals be allowed, and planning permission granted. A second review (the Arup review) commissioned by the local authority had been published…